Whistleblower’s death sets off a torrent of anger at China’s government

The death of one of the first Chinese doctors who alerted others about the coronavirus outbreak before it killed hundreds of people, including himself, has unleashed an outpouring of anger and grief toward the government.

Dr Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist in Wuhan, the central city where the virus was discovered, was admonished by the police for warning others about the previously unknown coronavirus in a chat group before officials disclosed it to the public.

Li's death, from pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, was first reported by Chinese media on Thursday night. The Wuhan Central Hospital, where he worked, said he died at 2.58am on Friday.

Overnight, Li's death has become the single most potent symbol of China's mishandling of early reports of the outbreak, which has killed more than 600 people and sickened 30,000 globally, mostly in mainland China.

Li became the most talked about person on Chinese social media, where his death has prompted a wave of anger and grief from a population struggling to contain the epidemic and cope with draconian restrictions on their daily lives.

Topic pages about his death on China's Twitter-like Weibo had been viewed billions of times in hours, with millions of comments praising Li as a hero and attacking Wuhan authorities' attempt to silence him.

As anger boiled on Friday morning, the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China's powerful anti-corruption body, said it would send officials to Wuhan to look into "issued raised by the people related to Dr Li Wenliang."

On December 30, Li warned associates from his medical school in a WeChat messaging group that an illness similar to Sars, or the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, had infected patients in a Wuhan hospital.

A screenshot of his message soon went viral.

But he was reprimanded by Wuhan police, along with several others, for "spreading rumors" about the coronavirus in early January. At that time, the Wuhan government said there was no evidence the virus could be transmitted between humans. (Read the warning letter in full here.)

With more than 20 countries scrambling to contain the virus's global march, Li was hailed as a heroic whistleblower whose warning Beijing should have heeded.

Internet users mourned him by posting candle emojis, artistic drawings of Li and the doctor's own quote, "A healthy society should not have only one voice," which he said during an interview with Caixin from his bed in an intensive care unit.

Many posted their condolences on Li's personal Weibo page. In his last post, on February 1, Li said he tested positive for the coronavirus. He told Caixin that he had likely contracted the virus while treating a patient, and his parents also developed symptoms afterward.

A healthy society should not have only one voiceLi Wenliang

A commentator said, "Thank you. Were it not for your warnings, I wouldn't have prepared my masks early on… I'm sure I'm not the only one protected by your 'rumors.'"

The police response to Li's warning had prompted rare criticism by China's top court on January 28, when nearly 200 people had died from the coronavirus.

An essay penned by a judge and published on the Supreme People's Court's social media accounts argued that Li and several others who first shared information about the outbreak should have been tolerated.

The Chinese authorities' attempt to maintain social order by muzzling speech has prompted questions about the Communist Party's iron-fisted rule that could prove to be politically damaging.

Some users shared symbols of dissent, including music videos of Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserables. Others shared quotations from V the Vendetta and Chernobyl, making veiled criticism of China's authoritarian system.

The hashtag "we demand freedom of speech" gained traction and millions of views on Weibo before Chinese censors caught up to it.

"He should be remembered and commemorated. He is very brave," said a Shanghai-based rapper, who changed his social media profile to a photo of Li on Friday. He declined to be named. "Politics is cruel. People's lives are only tools of the regime."

Bin Xu, a sociologist at Emory University, said the public mourning reflected people's frustration with the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak, from the initial cover-up to the draconian quarantine measures later on.

"It is an opportunity to air grievances about many things they are unsatisfied with in the past two weeks," Xu said.

Xu, who has studied the public mourning following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, said such grievances could undermine the legitimacy of the Chinese government if it failed to respond in a compassionate way.

Additional reporting by Laurie Chen.

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